


Warmth

by Paraxdisepink



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Past Torture, Protective Bucky Barnes, Sex In A Cave, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 10:49:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2729648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paraxdisepink/pseuds/Paraxdisepink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's protective nature causes him some lady troubles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warmth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bactaqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bactaqueen/gifts).



> For Bactaqueen's Bucky het birthday trade.

"Meanwhile Buck here was stuck up in the tree," Dugan was telling Steve. "He's warning us the Krauts are coming, because he's the one in the damn tree, and Gabe and I are telling him to hurry up and get down so we can take cover before they start shooting. We're whispering, trying not to make too much noise, but Bucky's sleeve is caught on a branch, all of us are low on ammo, and we don't know what the hell to do." 

He had to stop, he was laughing so hard, and Gabe was laughing on Bucky's other side. Bucky just shook his head, hiding his smile in his whiskey.

"I dunno why these idiots think this story is so funny."

"Oh it's funny," Gabe insisted and he and Dum Dum knocked their glasses together over Bucky's between them. 

"So how'd you get away?" Steve had barely touched his beer, sitting across from them, intent on Dugan's story the way he got whenever the guys started telling stories. He might have been the big hero now, but every member of his new team had more experience than him and Steve couldn't pretend that didn't intimidate him. He was hungry to feel like one of them instead of the dancing monkey they tried to make him into. He hadn't learned yet that he was better off on stage instead of lying in the mud watching someone's head get blown off right next him. 

"So..." Dugan was so drunk he couldn't catch his breath laughing and the word trailed off in a wheeze.

Gabe tried to finish for him. "So then Bucky-" _Tried_ is the operative word. He took one look at him and doubled over laughing.

Bucky took another drink. "These guys are idiots. It's not that funny."

Dugan wiped his eyes and drew a deep breath to control himself. "So then Bucky rips his arm free and he's about to jump. The Krauts are getting closer, any second they'll be in earshot, and the only thing I can think to do is hold out my arms before he either breaks his neck or gives us away when he hits the ground. I beckon to him and he glares at me, but he gets it. He rolls out of the tree, and I'm just happy that I've got him. There's no time to do anything but get the hell out of there. I'm still holding him and we're making our way as quick as we can. I hear a twig crunch behind me and I turn around, thinking it's the Krauts, but it's our Captain and the rest of our company, and there I am, holding Bucky in my arms like some dame. You should have seen his face."

He and Gabe broke off into more incoherent wheezing. Gabe did an impression for Steve that Bucky rolled his eyes at.

"Come on, I don't purse my lips like that."

"Yeah you do," Dugan said. "And you puff out your cheeks too like an angry chipmunk."

He patted Bucky's cheek the way his grandma used to and he and Jones turned back to Steve. 

"Speaking of which," said Gabe, "we haven't told Cap about the one where the Kraut panicked and thought you shot his nuts off."

Bucky laughed into his drink. "Now that one was funny. That was right after we got to Italy."

Steve's smile had slipped though, a little jealous of how much the three of them had been through together.

They launched into the story, but after a few minutes Bucky stopped listening. A slim woman in a purple beret moved through the shadows on the other side of the room. Bucky recognized her at once by her long auburn ponytail over her left shoulder, and before he knew what he was doing, he was pushing his chair back.

"I gotta take a piss."

Gabe followed Bucky's eye and shook his head. "You know you're not fooling anyone, but go get her." He gave Bucky an encouraging pat on the back. 

"Shut up," Bucky muttered with no heat. But as he walked away, he heard Steve ask "who's that?" and well that was a story he didn't want to be around for Steve to hear.

The SSR had set up HQ for the night in a two-hundred-year-old inn. The bottom floor was noisy with music and people yammering and no one was looking her way. On the chance she wanted to avoid attention, Bucky stopped himself from calling out to her. He caught her by the arm instead. Their eyes met and he nodded toward the door.

Gretchen let him lead her outside. Bucky didn't stop until they were tucked in the shadows alongside the building. It was cold and her heavy wool coat wasn't long enough to keep her bare legs warm, but he just wanted a minute.

"Thought you couldn't wait to get back to your father in Eisendorf? He's gotta be worried sick. Don't tell me they won't let you go."

Who knew if these SSR people were the type to keep her here on suspicion of being a spy just because she was German. Maybe they thought she had information.

Her deep blue eyes narrowed, reading the worry in his face. She was a whole lot prettier without the dirt and bruises that had covered her back in that prison camp. 

"And if that were true?" She demanded in her heavy accent. "Were you going to save me from these men holding me against my will?"

It was hard to tell whether she was amused or mocking him. Bucky couldn't blame her if she wanted to laugh at the idea of him saving anything after she'd seen him dragged off by HYDRA too sick for the dignity to walk to his own death, but he knew better than to say no. "Maybe." Hey, he was Captain America's best friend now. That might just count for something.

Gretchen shook her head. "My brave American, here to save the day for me." 

Now she had to be mocking. She stepped closer, raising a hand to trace the healing cut on his left cheek. Her touch was hot in contrast to the cold of the night and inside him. It had been a long time since he'd known the warmth of another person. War itself was cold. It was feeling less and less horrified each time you watched someone you had nicknames for get blown to bits in front of you, and it was needles and instruments in your body while you were strapped down too tight to move. Embarrassment flooded him at how quickly he responded to the heat of her touch and Bucky stepped back.

Her mouth tightened and she lowered her hand. "Should you be out drinking? You must still need rest. Your Captain should have ordered it." 

Bucky ignored the last part. He had told Steve he was fine. "Probably not." But how else was he going to stop thinking about that prison camp? He didn't want to talk about that though. "You didn't answer my question."

She folded her arms as if bracing for an argument. It reminded Bucky of how Steve used to be, only more confident and with less she thought she had to prove.

"I have information for the general. HYDRA has weapons stored not far from here. They have to be destroyed or they will only destroy more people with them." Bucky couldn't argue that after seeing men vaporized on the battlefield, but then she added, "I have offered my help. Tomorrow I will lead your team to the location of one cache I am certain of."

His heart leapt a little at the assurance of seeing more of her, but Jesus, she couldn't draw them a map? She was lucky to be alive and after the misery of that prison camp she was ready to go back out there like it was nothing. He would have been an idiot to expect any different from her, risking her life against the Nazis all these years, but he wished this damn war and now HYDRA would leave alone the people he cared about. 

*

Howard Stark himself flew them behind enemy lines over the German border. Bucky hoped Steve was happy finally getting into the war for real, but if he was nervous about leading men on his first official mission he did a good job of hiding it. Gretchen was doing an even better job of not letting on what she thought of Captain America and didn't say a word. At least until they landed.

They parachuted into the forest, and once they were on the ground she eyed Steve's bright uniform and the shield strapped to his back.

"I should go first to see that the cache is still there. I know the way through these woods. You would be too obvious."

Bucky shot Steve a grin because she had a point. That shiny shield wouldn't hide him from anything. The grin died quickly though and he mouthed to Steve, "You can't let her go into the forest without backup."

Steve nodded and turned back to her. "Take Bucky to cover you. He's the best shot we have."

Gretchen pursed her lips. They were pink and pouty and it really wasn't the time for those kind of thoughts. More importantly, Bucky would like to know what Dugan and Gabe told Steve to make him pointedly send the two of them out together. He wasn't going to argue though. 

"Of course," she said in a tone that could have been a little less stiff. What was it with him and stubborn people who got their feathers ruffled because he didn't want them getting hurt?

*

They walked. Bucky held his sidearm ready, tight in his left hand, tense and feeling vulnerable from every angle. The trees were so dense he didn't have a clear view in any given direction, but it didn't seem to bother Gretchen, and they walked about half a mile in silence. The only comfort was that the twigs and leaves underfoot would give them plenty of warning were anyone to sneak up on them. 

She stopped him at a clearing where she gestured to a mark someone had scratched on the trunk of a tree. Bucky climbed up that same tree as high as he could to get a good vantage point with his rifle while Gretchen dug around with her foot through the dirt and leaves. Whatever bunker door or hatch she was looking for, it was well buried. He barely got a glimpse of a tarnished metal handle before he caught sight of moving figures through the trees.

Their uniforms were Nazi, not HYDRA, but what did it matter? Bucky fired, dropping two of them to the ground with a shot between the eyes before Gretchen pulled her pistol out. There were eight in all, and between the two of them he and Gretchen left six bleeding in the dirt while the rest ran.

Bucky jumped down from his tree just as Gretchen lowered her pistol and said, "They won't have come alone. They never do."

Right on cue, a branch snapped in the distance. Gretchen grabbed his arm and started to pull him through the trees. 

"I know where we can take cover."

Bucky was about to ask about the weapons, but her grip was urgent and maybe she didn't want to risk getting taken alive again any more than he did, or maybe after years of Resistance activity against her own people, she had learned when to run. Sometimes it was the best choice you could make. Sometimes throwing down your weapons so the guys next to you weren't slaughtered on the spot was the best choice you could make. At least that was what Bucky had tried telling himself, rotting in Zola's prison.

They ran up and down two hills deeper into the trees. Bucky couldn't hear anyone behind them, but his heart was pounding so loud he couldn't hear much at all but the thrum of his own blood in his ears. They made it over another rise and Gretchen combed the hillside on the way down. All of a sudden she kicked at a mess of fallen branches at the bottom, revealing the entrance to a small cave Bucky guessed was man-made.

"Get in," she said. "We hide weapons here."

Bucky ducked and crawled in. It was dark and cold-smelling and barely big enough for the two of them. He grabbed his radio to contact Steve while they could still afford to make noise, only to hear gunfire in the background.

"Somebody else knew about those weapons," Steve kept his voice hushed. "We're being ambushed. Stay where you are and we'll come to you when it's clear."

Bucky didn't like huddling like a scared rabbit while Steve and the others were out there getting shot at, but he had no real choice if he didn't want to risk drawing more of the enemy to them trying to find him. 

"Got it, Cap," he said grudgingly and put the radio and his rifle down. 

Gretchen replaced the branches to obscure the cave's tiny entrance and then sat back against the cold dirt and rock wall without saying another word. Bucky could feel her tense at his shoulder and in the thin light coming through he could see the tightness of her mouth as she tried not to look at him. He wasn't sure what the hell he was supposed to say now that they were alone. She wasn't the first girl who's been angry at him, but she was the first one to be angry over something that happened in a prison camp. Either way, Bucky couldn't take the silence.

"You gonna keep doing this? Fighting HYDRA _and_ Nazis now?"

Her gaze swung to him despite herself, face stubborn. "Should I not? You are."

So he was. But Steve had come all that way to pull his ass out of that factory and Bucky had promised the idiot he'd always be there. What else was he supposed to do? Go home and tell his family and all of Brooklyn he abandoned him? Dying was better than living with that.

Bucky sighed.

"It just kinda feels like this war's taking everyone. They turned my best friend into a weapon and he's aiming himself right at HYDRA, and last letter I got, my sister's serving as a nurse on the front lines in the South Pacific where I know things are bad. It'd be nice if someone made it back home to their family in one piece." 

Ever since Bucky had first seen action he'd felt like he was never making it home, that a guy could only get lucky walking away from the battlefield so many times. In that camp, it had seemed the only real choice he'd had left was how the people who mattered to him remembered him after. That's what she didn't understand.

Gretchen put on her best offended expression. "I remind you of your sister?"

Bucky blinked, not expecting the flirtatious tone under the fake hurt and the attempt to lighten the mood. He met her eyes. She was so damn pretty with her big blue eyes and her small pink mouth and her dark auburn hair falling over one shoulder. It made his stomach clench. The dames nowadays didn't want to hear it, but he couldn't help thinking something that pretty didn't belong here.

"'Course not."

She smiled and her eyes didn't leave his face. They traced every faint bruise and cut still visible and she pressed her lips together, swallowing hard. The cave was dead silent for a moment before she blurted out, "I had a plan to escape. You didn't have to tell them to take you instead."

So they were talking about it now? Maybe she did have a plan—he wouldn't put it past her to have tried anyway—but he'd heard Steve swear up and down he'd had this or that bully so many times all Bucky could do is shake his head. 

"I was dead anyway. You weren't." He might have been rotting of pneumonia and helpless, but standing up for her was the one thing he could do. "Besides, it worked out, didn't it?"

The attempt to soothe her with what they both knew was a lie only upset her. "No it didn't," she choked out. "No one came back once they took them." She seized him by the shoulders and he was afraid she would cry. "Bucky, you were so dumb."

Her eyes were wet. She had been blaming herself for what HYDRA did to him this whole time. Bucky hadn't realized... 

Her grip tightened and it was hard to say who moved first, but next Bucky knew her fingers curled into the back of his hair and his mouth was crushed to hers. She was warm, the way all girls were, but the kiss wasn't playful or gentle. It was rough with the fear and hard survival and the cold of that place that the war had forced into them both and he couldn't get enough of her.

He cupped her cheek to pull her closer and he was kissing her harder than he meant to, harder than he would have before, when everything was innocent and he didn't know raw desperation like he did now. The same desperation took control of her too and her hands went to the buttons of his blue coat.

Bucky pulled back enough so he could get his sidearm and holster out of the way in order to shrug the coat off. Gretchen grabbed at the shirt he wore underneath, tugging it out of his pants and over his head as if desperate to seize the comfort of another warm body while she had the chance. It was stupid, fooling around like this, when they should be on their guard for the Krauts to find them any minute, but at that moment Bucky didn't care.

His shirt landed on top of his coat and she murmured against his mouth, "Let me see what they did to you."

He could only imagine what kind of hideous disfigurement she expected, but Bucky let her look. It was mostly just fading scars where he remembered incomprehensible pain and cut open flesh. Maybe he had hallucinated the worst of it. He didn't know anymore. Gretchen traced one scalpel mark below his collarbone so lightly he shivered. She bit her lip and all Bucky could see was her blaming herself again. Her hand moved down, taking her time tracing another mark along his ribs and then another over his stomach. He couldn't help that her slow ticklish touch went straight to his cock. She had to know it had been a while. Between the growing ache and the miserable look on her face mapping Zola's handiwork, Bucky couldn't take it and he caught her hand.

"Come on. What they did wasn't your fault."

She dragged her gaze away and looked up, her face pained. "You were so dumb," was all she could say.

"I thought you girls liked scars," he tried to tease, but it fell flat and he curled a hand under her jaw instead, leaning down to kiss her. Gretchen wasn't shy, and maybe part of her was still angry. She shoved at his chest, pushing him onto his back and climbed on top of him.

Bucky wasn't an idiot, and the war couldn't change everything about him. If a beautiful woman wanted to get on top of him he was more than willing to go with it.

Gretchen went back to tracing the mark below his collarbone. Bucky arched into her touch and it was funny how his dick could pound, hard and impatient in his pants, while he remembered that mark dripping blood. He didn't want to remember, and his hands closed around her small waist, gently pulling her closer.

"You gotta stop thinking about it. This is supposed to be fun."

She raised an eyebrow and pretended to look offended again. "Oh? Am I not fun enough?"

Leaning down, she pressed her mouth to that thin red mark and kissed lower, over his chest, stroking his nipple with her tongue. She wasn't shy, and that was just how Bucky liked them. His hand moved up from her waist, cupping one of her breasts through her dress. She must have forgotten she still had her coat on because she shrugged it off in sudden annoyance so his hands could move over her more freely. She kissed a few fading bruises on his ribs, his dick throbbing harder with each touch of her hot mouth. "Poor Bucky," she murmured into his skin.

He smiled up at her, warmth in his chest, pounding through his body. "Right now I'm not feeling too sorry for myself."

She laughed, but his hand hadn't crept any lower than her hip and she frowned at it. "Are you shy?" She wriggled on top of him. "Maybe I do remind you of your sister."

Bucky let out a small moan at the pressure against his groin. He wasn't shy, just... unsure what she wanted, how far was welcome. But he let his hand wander under her skirt where she was all heat between her thighs and her skin was soft. It was the only thing soft about her. Gretchen let him stroke along the inside of her thigh and over her ass, and then she grew impatient and sat up, opening his belt and the buttons on his pants.

His whole lower body tightened in anticipation, and with the thrill of how forward she was, but he wasn't irresponsible. "I don't have-" The Army supplied them with plenty of protection despite the rubber shortage, but it wasn't something you thought to bring on a mission.

Gretchen reached into the pocket of her dress and Bucky shook his head. "You just carry those wherever you go?"

Her expression turned stubborn. "You have to lure the enemy any way you can. Then you kill him."

Bucky blinked. He should have been a little horrified or intimidated, but he'd killed plenty of the enemy, and maybe he should have been ashamed, but the idea of her reeling them in like that only to put a bullet in their heads during or afterward only got him hotter.

"You're crazy," was all Bucky could say, but it was thick with amazement and next he knew he was helping her shove his pants off his hips and tugging her panties down. 

She hiked her dress and slip up and he rolled the rubber on. Just like that, she was sinking onto him, wet and hot and in a hurry to have him inside her. She was so hot clenched around him it felt like all the cold of the war was being seared out of him and when she started to grind on top of him, it was heaven and torture all at once. Bucky laid his head back, grabbing her hips, biting his lower lip to keep from making noise, thrusting up into her. 

It wasn't enough. It had been too long. Bucky pushed himself so he was sitting up, holding her in his lap, burying himself deeper into the heat of her. They both let out a breath at how good that was and he was kissing her again, unbuttoning the top buttons of her dress and mouthing at her neck and the tops of her breasts, letting his hands roam all over her. Soft sounds escaped her that she tried to muffle. She spread her knees wider where she was straddling him and rocked herself onto him harder.

Harder was what they both needed. Bucky got one arm around her and dragged her coat closer, laying her down on it, sinking over her on his elbows. Gretchen wrapped her long legs around him and he was thrusting fast and deep, dragging his whole body over her the friction was so frantic. They were both panting, and before long she was contracting around him, nails digging into his back, biting into her lower lip to keep the sounds in.

He kept moving in her until a soft whimper slipped out of her. She was wetter and hotter now after her release and she had him so close to the edge his desperate thrusting gave way to erratic snaps of his hips. His climax spilled out of him in a rush of relief and heavy shudders. Even his arms were shaking, it was so powerful or he was weak still. He felt like he could barely hold himself up.

When he was all wrung out, he rolled off her, lying to face her on his side. For a few moments nothing but their rapid breathing filled the cave, but once it calmed, Gretchen was smiling in the thin light. She looked relaxed, happy, and he felt... lighter.

Bucky smiled back at her, reaching between them to trace a finger in the gap of her unbuttoned dress. "Would have liked to have taken that a bit slower." He would have liked to get that dress of her, kiss her in all kinds of places, show her he knew things.

Her smile widened. "Next time."

Bucky's heart skipped that she wanted a next time, even if it meant she had no plans of going home just yet. 

She sat up, buttoning her dress and putting her underwear back on. Bucky tossed the rubber in a corner of the cave and pushed dirt over it with his boot. He put his shirt and coat back on and did his pants up, and when they were both presentable again Gretchen pressed up next to him, tracing another mark on his chest through his clothes as if she had memorized them all.

"You must have been strong," she said, "to survive their experiments when no one else did."

"I tried." The truth was, he doesn't know how he survived, or why. He tried not to think about it.

Gretchen held his eyes for a moment and then wet her lips. "When they took you, I was so afraid for you." 

Bucky slid his arms around her, an ache moving through him. "Yeah, well now you don't have to be."

She laid her head on his chest and Bucky drew her closer. Somehow the feel of her tucked against him was more satisfying than anything.

Steve radioed forty-five minutes later, and he and the others found them like that. Steve gave him a frown, but said nothing. Dugan eyed the leaves on Bucky's coat and shook his head.

"What? Every time you get in a tree Nazis show up?"

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who don't know, Gretchen Zeller was comic Bucky's wartime love. He was going to go back for her after the war ended, but Winter Soldier happened. She was awesome. Steve agreed. It was sad. Sharon agreed. One of the first things Bucky did when he got his memories back was track down her family so he could see where she was buried and pay his respects.


End file.
